Quote:
Originally Posted by pylon
What does scare me though, is with the growing rate of immigration, would one of those people that walked past that dying child, walk past a dying Canadian? Are we going to start seeing the same indifference in our country, and people protected by the "It is a cultural difference, we let our citizens bleed to death in agony, and it is a hate crime to punish me for it." Knowing our government, I could see it happening.
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It's definitely an interesting question. It's my impression that in most countries with large immigrant populations, Chinese immigrants seem to be perceived as fairly non-disruptive to local culture, but could these cultural issues be imported with high enough immigration levels? How strong an influence can changes in environment have on that kind of learned behaviour? There's no doubt that being in China has changed my reactions to a lot of morally conflicting situations based on the values and beliefs of the community I'm in. I would think that people from China and other places would adapt to local values too, given time and real immersion in the community.
I would think the most important factors in preventing the situation you're worried about is just making sure the conditions in Canada are never the kind to pressure people into learning those habits and making sure that cultural values that support taking action to help others are promoted in all sorts of community venues and supported with judicial and legislative decisions.