TGIF: Immigration and Culture

I pay no attention to the Super Bowl, even less to the overhyped halftime show. But I do pay some attention to the reaction to the show's headliners when they're announced and afterward. So I know that some people did not like that Bad Bunny (whom I knew nothing about and still don't know much) was to be the featured performer. Apparently, some people were offended that he performs in Spanish. (Can you imagine! I mean, who speaks Spanish in America?) I'm also aware that Turning Point USA  held a rival halftime show featuring 50-something "Kid" Rock doing a bad lip-sync in the Bermuda shorts my father donated to Goodwill in 1975.

I bring this up only because this controversy is loudly related to immigration, which I do care about. It should be pointed out, however, that Bad Bunny, being Puerto Rican, is as much an American citizen as I am, unlike many past, presumably acceptable Super Bowl halftime headliners. Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917. That's not the Mayflower era, of course, but it's more than a century ago. My paternal grandparents arrived in America from Lithuania and Belarus around that time.

All signs point to cultural insecurity (at best) as to why so many people are uncomfortable with the prospect of free, or ever freer, immigration. A few moments'  reflection is enough to show why that's silly, especially in the United States. Trying to control a culture is like (my apologies; I can't improve on this) trying to nail Jello to the wall. Ain't gonna happen.

Thomas Sowell, who regretably hasn't seen the light on open borders, nevertheless has a reality-based view of culture. (See my "Culture without Romance.")  In a 1990 speech (video) titled "Cultural Diversity"(transcript), Sowell said:

Cultural features do not exist merely as badges of “identity,” to which we have some emotional attachment. They exist to meet the necessities and forward the purposes of human life. When they are surpassed by features of other cultures, they tend to fall by the wayside, or to survive only as marginal curiosities, like Roman numerals today. [Emphasis added.]

He also said:

Cultures exist so that people can know how to get food and put a roof over their head, how to cure the sick, how to cope with the death of loved ones, and how to get along with the living. Cultures are not bumper stickers. They are living, changing ways of doing all the things that have to be done in life. [Emphasis added.]

And more:

[Some "advocates of 'diversity'"]seem to want to preserve cultures in their purity, almost like butterflies preserved in amber. Decisions about change, if any, seem to be regarded as collective decisions, political decisions. But that is not how any cultures have arrived where they are. Individuals have decided for themselves how much of the old they wished to retain, how much of the new they found useful in their own lives. In this way, cultures have enriched each other in all the great civilizations of the world.

Thus, I submit, the desire to bar foreign-born people on grounds of cultural incompatibility is ridiculous. Since wonderful America, the envy of the world, has always been a changing mix of countless cultural elements, we'd be harming ourselves by any attempt to keep things "traditional." “Every culture," Sowell said, "discards over time the things which no longer do the job or which don’t do the job as well as things borrowed from other cultures. Each individual does this, consciously or not, on a day to day basis.” (Emphasis added.) So if a Scotsman, say, were to ask us freeze our culture at the point he deemed "classic," we'd damn well laugh in his face. Or we should do. Dammit, America is not a theme park for snobs. 

Another thing: no one, not you or you or you, can own "your" culture. As Bryan Caplan explains in his new collection of blogposts, You Have No Right to Your Culture,

No one, no one, has “a right to their culture.”

Why not?  Because culture is… other people!  Culture is who other people want to date and marry.  Culture is how other people raise their kids.  Culture is the movies other people want to see.  Culture is the hobbies other people value.  Culture is the sports other people play.  Culture is the food other people cook and eat.  Culture is the religion other people choose to practice.  To have a “right to your culture” is to have a right to rule all of these choices – and more. Though I dread hyperbole, the “right to your culture” is literally totalitarian, because you can’t ensure the preservation of your culture without totalitarian rule over the very fabric of life in your society.

So get over it, foes of immigration, unplanned dynamism, progress, and, oh yeah, freedom. Grow up and smell the huge variety of coffees, teas, and cuisines. No matter how hard you stamp your foot, you won't be able to freeze the culture at your chosen point. And thank goodness for that. But in trying, you'll do maximum damage to a lot of innocent people.

And don't moan that complete assimilation is a myth. As commentator Michael Liebowitz points out, that's not a myth; it's a strawman! We open-borders champions don't promise it, and we wouldn't want it. Imagine if newcomers from other lands didn't open restaurants, put on shows, and do other things reflecting their origins. No Little Italy? No Chinatown? How boring! I realize that in the past, a "melting pot" was promised, but again, who'd welcome that? Given the incentives of learning English and other basic customs in America, we can rest secure knowing that culture is a spontaneous order that, in freedom, takes care of itself. Central planners need not apply.