--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
>
> What you are referring to is a specific type of
> cognitive diversity
> maintained by the officialdom (i.e. official
> recognition of various ethnic
> groups) , which is relatively absent in the modern
> US comparing to, say,
> Japan or Europe.
But the attitude of the chinovniki (bureaucrats) is based on the attitudes of the people themselves, which is a product of living in a huge multinational empire (post-empire). I suspect a comparison with India might be appropriate, except that AFAIK India has no single overwhelmingly numerically predominant ethnic group. No way is an Ingush going to think of him- or herself as a Russian, or even as a Caucasian (in the Russian sense of the term). (Whereas an ethnic Russian would concur on the former point, and disagree on the latter.)
What
> is more or less diverse
> a mild intolerance of most other groups (which on
> average characterizes the
> US) or tolerance of some but intense intolerance of
> others (which
> characterizes Russia?
>
I think you're confusing recognition of diversity and tolerance. The Caucasus (both the part in Russia and that outside it) has upwards of 50 or 60 ethno-cultural groups, each of which considers itself completely distinct from all the others. That's pretty damn diverse. That did not prevent them from cutting each other's throats in the early 1990s. Indeed it was the main reason, or rather nationalism and conflicting territorial claims were. The ethnic chauvinism in Georgia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s was just off the scale. It was an ethnic-cleansing orgy.
In just Dagestan -- which DOES have a reputation for tolerance -- you have 34 different groups speaking different languages all packed together in an area the size of the state of Maryland. How could you possibly be more diverse?
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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