Dear LEGO,

<<Human beings are tribal and territorial, that is in our DNA>>

Indeed, many mammals are.

However, firstly the DNA is neither sacred nor a standard of morality - it's just a blind mechanism.
Secondly, tribes so large that members do not even recognise each other are unnatural - human tribes existed for hundreds of thousands of years, but they consisted of just a few dozen individuals and up to a maximum of 150-200. The mega-societies that we now have, both national and transnational are an aberration, nor would the natural laws of ecology allow them to survive for long.

Ls Mise: (pedantry continued) "there's no such thing as the Cross of St Patrick." If that's right, what do you call the red diagonal thing-a-me within the white field on the present Union "Jack" that was absent in the US Grand Union Flag? My information on St. Patrick's Cross came from Wikipedia, so it might be wrong. It does appear, however, that the Union "Jack" was changed to commemorate Ireland's incorporation into the UK in 1801. As a boy I was told the the British flag had the crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick on a blue ground. But I was probably told this by some old pedant.

No worries, Poirot.

But first, you have to explain to me, and everybody else on OLO, how if multiculturalism failed dismally in Lebanon, Fiji, Cyprus, Georgia, Afghanistan, Biafra, Rhodesia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Syria Libya, Bangladesh, Liberia, Kashmir, Punjab, Sudan, Nigeria, Bougainville, East Timor, Yugoslavia, Kurdistan, New Zealand, Bhutan, Angola, Burma, Chechnya, Guadalcanal, Aden, Malaya, Oman, Congo, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Palestine/Israel, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, Thailand, Britain, Sweden, Germany, Spain, the USA (the great melting pot!) and most recently Ukraine, what makes you think it is going to work exclusively in Australia?

And also I ask you to explain how any country can have social cohesion and stability, when under multiculturalism, there is no defining national culture to assimilate to, only a multiculture of competing tribes?

Yuyutsu.

Territorial behaviour is also normal behaviour in fish, reptiles, birds, and marsupials.

Your premise that human beings can transcend normal instincts is correct, but only up to a point. People can overcome their natural instincts and desires, but if they go too far in repressing their own natural feelings, they can become mentally ill. Sigmund Freud noted that people who reprised their feelings too much started to exhibit odd behaviour, a phenomenon he named "neurosis."

You can not convince homosexuals that their behaviour is wrong because it has no connection to procreation. Some of Freud's patients were in fact homosexuals who themselves accepted their society's and their church's teachings that their behaviour was unacceptable.

Thinking that all you need to overcome your natural instincts, all the time, is a rational reason, is silly. It is just like telling teenagers that in order to combat over population, all they need to do is stop thinking about sex.

The problem with socialist social theory, is that it presumes that people are robots who will do whatever "rational" act that the socialists can dream up. But what is rational? It is not irrational for a poor person to rob a bank.

Human beings are not robots. We think emotionally, not rationally. We can think rationally, when all other means are exhausted, but we need to perform a physical act to do it. We need to "concentrate". None of us can walk around in a constant state of concentration. The ability to concentrate is an evolutionary adaptation to allow us to program our emotional mind with conditioned reflexes, which are what we use for solving everyday problems.

Our emotional minds do not like it when a person from another sub species invades our territory. We can tolerate them, but only up to a point. People who live in resource poor societies have little tolerance for outsiders. People who live in resource rich societies are much more tolerant. White people are more tolerant than other races because we have been living in prosperity for a long time. But when the tide of prosperity ebbs....?

Dear LEGO,

Archimedes said: "Give me a lever and a place to stand outside the earth, then I will move the whole earth".

Indeed, so long as one operates using the mind alone, all that can be achieved is repression rather than transcendence. It's like digging a hole with a spade and making a small hill with the excess dirt - the earth continues unaffected in its course round the sun. Eventually the weather and the waves will erode the hill and cover the hole.

To shift the fundamentals, something bigger than the mind is necessary: in Western culture it has been called "Grace" and the source of that grace is personified by an almighty deity. The Hindu tradition however, recognises that the source of grace is your own true self.

You already recognise the need for your higher rational mind to control your lower emotional mind, as well as the value of concentration. This is very so, but if we stop here than nothing is achieved in the long term and our 80 years or so of effort will come to nothing. Fortunately the higher rational mind is not on its own - it has a higher purpose to serve and so grace is available.

Who's driving your chariot?

http://www.swamij.com/chariot-yoga.htm

LEGO,

This thread is not about "multiculturalism".

We, as an independent self-governing nation, are already multicultural.

Explain to me how transferring the role of assent from the monarch of another country to our own governing parliament ill-defines our national culture?