We in the west have surrendered with weak punishments and lax enforcement for anti social behaviour. In many cases even abolishing laws or putting in place public policy that prevents the imprisonment of people who commit "low level" crimes. There's a certain segment of the population who will (largely unsuccessfully) try to shame you if you promote a tough on crime approach.
In my country the entire justice system has been hijacked by activist judges who are hell bent on promoting these whacky ideas and letting serious criminals go virtually unpunished.
I'm just not sure that stronger punishment and enforcement is going to be the answer here. It seems like many of the Asian cultures have a much higher level of social cohesion even without the threat of punishment. How do we get (back) to higher social cohesion in the West? I recall seeing a film of a shanty town somewhere in the US during the Great Depression. It was very neat and tidy. What happened between then and now?
Which Asian cultures are you speaking about which have high social cohesion without threat of punishment? Singapore will punish anti-social behaviour like vandalism with mandatory caning, or fine you heavily for jay walking. In Japan police will intervene much more readily in cases of public intoxication and even noise complaints.
For more serious anti social behaviour like gun crimes, violent crimes and drug trafficking there are very strong mandatory penalties up to and including corporal punishment and execution.
Conviction rates in these countries are upwards of 99%. So in cases of intervention a punishment is almost certain.
America has a low social cohension because of global immigration instead of targeted immigration compare to China. America use to share a culture because people came from the same places and shared the same religion and had a common history going back to the Romans.
....sadly more true than anyone here would probably like to admit. I love having Indian coworkers and there’s a large Indian population where I am at, but they are just completely separated in every single way from everyone else. and they keep it that way.
my Pakistani coworkers are absolutely wonderful. Sweet, hard-working, very enjoyable to talk to, but their families and lives are just a totally different universe and they don’t share it.
The honestly very poor black community around the area? they fucking hate us white people. like actively, all the time, no what no matter what you have or haven’t done they don’t like your ass one bit. i’ve seen inside some of the homes, and they are filled with independent black power movie posters about shooting Whitey. No kidding.
I know it takes a village, but when people are so very different and forced to be near each other, it doesn’t mean that they will socialize or help each other; it’s like living on two different planets. there’s all kinds of social research showing this now, and what you get is micro segregation along income lines, rather than everyone helping each other and lifting up the community together.
I wanted for most of my life for people to get along and the world to be a better place, thinking that education and modern access to information could somehow make things better. It seems that was entirely and completely wrong. when people have any kind of discomfort at all about new culture or new person or new idea? They pretty much just run away.
The people here on hacker news are probably an exception, because we are here searching for commentary and interesting ideas and new information.
What an awful society you live in.
It is not like that where I live.
The first generation of immigrants have trouble, natural enough. But are very keen that their children do better.
As for racism: Most racism here is systemic, from the state. There is casual ignorant racism, of course, but little hate.
What a mess has been made of your country. You should work to fix it.
It took us a lot of work to get here, and we have a long way to go. But I cannot imagine living in a society such as you describe.