Los Angelenos Don't Trust Each Other

Why? Because of ethnic diversity.

A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has been revealed in research by Harvard University’s Robert Putnam, one of the world’s most influential political scientists.

His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.

This is no more than what conservatives - real conservatives, not neos - have been saying since the dawn of political thought. It's well nigh impossible to form Burke's "little brigades" from diverse groups that don't have much in common.

This is a contentious finding in the current climate of concern about the benefits of immigration. Professor Putnam told the Financial Times he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it “would have been irresponsible to publish without that”.

It's a "contentious finding" only to those whose aim is to deconstruct the West through mass immigration. As for Putnam's delaying publication so that he could attempt to "compensate for the negative effects of diversity", so much for "political science" as a science, the objective of the latter being to discover the truth.

The core message of the research was that, “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down”, he said. “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.”

Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, “the most diverse human habitation in human history”, but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where “diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians’ picnic”.

The article doesn't tell us what the level of trust is in South Dakota vs. L.A.; I'm guessing they through that in to satisfy the multiculturalists. Latin America is well known to have low levels of social trust, and the presence of so many of them undoubtedly contributes to the low levels found in L.A.

Unsurprisingly, Putnam says that it is we who need to change:

In an oblique criticism of Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, who revealed last week he prefers Muslim women not to wear a full veil, Prof Putnam said: “What we shouldn’t do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us.”

Professor Putnam, kindly take your recommendations and put them in a very dark place...