Benefits of Being a Multicultural Society

A multicultural society is one in which different cultures exist alongside each other, often intermingling and incorporating a variety of aspects that define other cultures. Out of this cultural-blending comes a greater respect for each other's culture, tolerance and a far more interesting and diverse society. In a multicultural society, individuals are able to practice whatever religion they choose, to wear what they want, to eat what they want and engage in cultural practices that may not be fully understood by mainstream society.

In a multicultural society, immigrants have obviously played a significant role in shaping the cultural landscape, having brought with them their own beliefs and attitudes that shape their perception of their adopted nation. These individuals then pass their experiences and beliefs on to their children, encouraging them to follow various cultural practices which may differ from those practised by wider society. The children of immigrants grow up in a society where they learn about the world their parents came from and about the society they call home at school and from their friends.

This clearly makes for a more tolerant and open-minded society. Multi-culturalism enables different beliefs and value systems to co-exist, which means that positive aspects of one culture may be adopted by others to create a better society. In a globalised world, there is no place for isolation and discrimination, since to get ahead in life, individuals have to recognise both the similarities and differences that exist between various peoples. Multi-culturalism makes a society more open to change, as its social make-up is often in flux, as individuals move between societies.

As a consequence, individuals bring with them different experiences that can profoundly shape the society in which they have settled. A society's culture obviously reflects the experiences of its inhabitants, which is demonstrated throughout the literary world, in television, films and music. Individuals are exposed to a wide variety of cultures that often come together in a positive way, with multiculturalism often celebrated by liberal society. Youngsters grow up accepting that diversity is normal, that everyone is entitled to live life the way they want and that, at the end of the day, despite what clothes people wear and language they speak, people are all the same underneath.

There will always be those who maintain that multiculturalism has taken away a particular national identity, but national identities are never fixed and everyone has their own interpretation of what it means to belong to their nation. Some people may want to go back to a golden age, a time when society was more homogeneous and cohesive. There was no such age, though, as there has always been some degree of intermingling of cultures, even if it was less widespread. It is impossible to go backwards, anyway, and globalisation means that it is clearly better for individuals to be familiar with different cultures.