Apparently and regardless of governmental restrictions, people will migrate from one country to another if they believe there’s something to be gained in the move: Safety, for instance, or wealth, maybe infiltration for terroristic purposes, whatever. The causes of migration are, therefore, multiple, the results are the same, an endemic or indigenous population undergoes diversification. That’s the principle of equifinality in action, and we see it today in more than a million immigrants to the southern border of the United States, the people from other countries who have applied for entry through the legal system, and, recently, in the tens of thousands of Afghan refugees seeking safety. The end of the causes is the same, many people arriving in the United States in a very short time, a mass migration that increases the population by an unknown number that maybe some future census will determine.
The equifinality of being in the United States does not, however, alter the multifinality of outcomes among individual migrants. Some will succeed in their new homeland; others will not. And no amount of averaging will explain the success or plight of migrating individuals. But averaging will imply that a wide range of outcomes will occur. Unfortunately, those who claim to see the “big picture” will not take into account the pixels of failures and even tragedies that will become the fate of many individuals both among the migrating and indigenous populations.
As “meltiing pot” America has discovered through migrations (both voluntary and forced), the “finality” for the country is always a mix of “equi” and “multi.” There’s no getting round that historical fact. Decades from now, people will have the perspective that the present does not afford: It’s only in looking back that we can see, for example, the advantages of having an Einstein, a Fermi, or a Bethe living in the United States, or of having many others who added to our knowledge of the world, such as Audubon in ornithology and Claude in cellular biology. Maybe somewhere in the mix of current migrants there are some who will become known for accomplishments that will enhance the lives of others just as many involuntary migrants, the African slaves, produced enhancements in industry, technology, agriculture, and the arts and sciences. But if we average to say that generally the influx of migrants will enhance the country in some way, we must also say that generally the influx will also provide us with new versions of Charles “Lucky” Luciano.
The CATO Institute ran some numbers on “criminal immigrants” in the United States. Not counting the “illegals” held in jails or prisons for illegal border crossings, the institute found that among legal immigrants incarceration amounted to 364 per 100,000, whereas among illegal immigrants, incarceration was 756 per 100,000—keep in mind that these incarcerations were for “crimes” not associated with an illegal border crossing. * Now, that sounds like bad news because any crime has a victim and many crimes have multiple victims. And, in fact, it is bad news. However, and there’s often a “however” in such matters, the researchers found that “Legal and illegal immigrants were less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans in 2017, just as they were in 2014 and 2016” (5). Imported crime does not surpass home-grown crime.
Where does that leave us? There are those who favor “borderless” countries. I suppose at their core, they believe in some “world unity.” They are, as I have previously called them, the “Imagine Idealists” after John Lennon’s lyrics, people for whom reality is an average and for whom some endpoint unity is possible, maybe inevitable. They are versions themselves of a Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who believe that human evolution works to make humans better, whatever “better” means, physical, intellectual, spiritual. They believe the masses will unconsciously work toward a better world. To hold such an evolution principle, they must ignore the realities, the details, of actual evolution, specifically that its mutations are random. They must also ignore that many such mutations result in “tragedies” for the individuals in the grand experimental scheme of things. Biology, used as a model, has produced far more losers than winners if estimates on the number of species that have gone extinct are reasonable. David M. Raup, a statistical paleontologist, estimates that the planet has housed up to fifty billion species over the last 3.5 billion years. ** And although there are conceivably between 5 and 50 million species alive today (no one knows), those alive are outnumbered by those extinct. Thus, evolutionary experiments don’t always lead to success stories, averages are still just averages with outliers of all kinds, and some of those outliers are victims of crimes committed by border crossers, in fact, by migrants both legal and illegal. Still, there are those who believe the world will work its way toward some Overman as Nietzsche postulated and Bernard Shaw promulgated, or toward some Omega Point imagined by de Chardin, that the trend will be toward “betterment” and “unity.” “Imagine…and the world will live as one” (Lennon).
And it might. Yes, it might. But then, again, there have been in just one year in the United States those incarcerated 756 per 100,000 who have entered the country to do no “good.” And the same applies to other countries. Sure, the average might be toward some neutral or enhanced state of the State, but the individuals who suffer some harm, loss, or even personal extinction at the hands of migrants won’t be around to see the future Fermis, Audubons, and Claudes enhance our knowledge of the world. Does migration offer benefits? Did you use Google to find this author? Thank—or curse, depending on whether or not you like these musings of mine—Sergery Brin, immigrant who with Larry Page founded the search engine. Had Brin not emigrated from the Soviet Union…
That difference between equifinality and multifinality, terms used by psychologists trying to trace the origins of pathological individuals, does seem to apply here. Two people can have very similar experiences but end up different (multifinality); two can have very different experiences but end up the same (equifinality). We’re unpredictable as individuals, however. Do we apply averages when we are not personally affected? Those who favor unlimited border crossings have no objections to them. Many poor immigrants will arrive to become productive individuals. But what if those “Imagine Idealists” were personally victimized by an illegal alien criminal? What, for example, if they were in the baby shoes of the three-year old child of 35-year-old Karen Ruiz of California? Karen was killed by Herbert Nixon Flores, a 46-year-old Salvadoran who had been deported ten times for offenses ranging from burglary to driving under the influence, to resisting arrest, to criminal threats to, well, a bunch of other illegal activities. Average that, I might ask of an “Imagine Idealist,” into your Omega Point, your Imagined World, your Nietzschean Overman. Certainly, Karen won’t be able to see the endpoint because she prematurely reached it thanks to Flores and the sanctuary system that allowed him to stay in the United States on his eleventh illegal entry.
I have no idea what caused the pathology of Flores. Maybe he was reared without love. But, then again, maybe he was reared with love. At 46 and shortly after killing Karen Ruiz, he committed suicide, so we’ll never know. Does it matter whether or not his life path was filled with love or hate, with respect for life or disdain for it, with compunction or indifference?
And so, migrations will continue as they have since humans spread first throughout Africa and then throughout the world. They will be both voluntary and involuntary marches of the innocent and evil, the bright and dull, and the moral and amoral. In every group of every ethnic stripe, there have been the good the inventive. Those unaffected personally by any evil will say that all is well and good. Greater diversity has given USA African-American, Asian, and European inventors and engineers. It has given the United States thinkers and artists, industrialists and technologists, and moral and spiritual leaders. Those negatively affected will say there are prices to pay that no individual should have to pay, prices paid by Karen Ruiz and her daughter. Those who favor open borders will think in terms of averages and of the supposed evolution toward some wonderful finality. They will continue to believe that given the right start in life, all individuals will end in an equifinality of good. In opposition, those who have experienced varying degrees of harm will note that multifinality is more rule than exception.
How do you view yourself? Is it in terms of averages or in terms of specifics? I would guess it’s in terms of the latter rather than the former.
Notes:
*Langrave, Michelangelo and Alex Nowrasteh. 4 Mar 2019. Criminal Immigrants in 2017: Their Numbers, Demographics, and Countries of Origin. CATO Institute, Immigration Research and Policy Brief No. 11. PDF available.
**Raup, David M. Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? New York. W.W. Norton & Company, 1991. I’ve quoted Raup in other blogs. The book is worth the read.
The equifinality of being in the United States does not, however, alter the multifinality of outcomes among individual migrants. Some will succeed in their new homeland; others will not. And no amount of averaging will explain the success or plight of migrating individuals. But averaging will imply that a wide range of outcomes will occur. Unfortunately, those who claim to see the “big picture” will not take into account the pixels of failures and even tragedies that will become the fate of many individuals both among the migrating and indigenous populations.
As “meltiing pot” America has discovered through migrations (both voluntary and forced), the “finality” for the country is always a mix of “equi” and “multi.” There’s no getting round that historical fact. Decades from now, people will have the perspective that the present does not afford: It’s only in looking back that we can see, for example, the advantages of having an Einstein, a Fermi, or a Bethe living in the United States, or of having many others who added to our knowledge of the world, such as Audubon in ornithology and Claude in cellular biology. Maybe somewhere in the mix of current migrants there are some who will become known for accomplishments that will enhance the lives of others just as many involuntary migrants, the African slaves, produced enhancements in industry, technology, agriculture, and the arts and sciences. But if we average to say that generally the influx of migrants will enhance the country in some way, we must also say that generally the influx will also provide us with new versions of Charles “Lucky” Luciano.
The CATO Institute ran some numbers on “criminal immigrants” in the United States. Not counting the “illegals” held in jails or prisons for illegal border crossings, the institute found that among legal immigrants incarceration amounted to 364 per 100,000, whereas among illegal immigrants, incarceration was 756 per 100,000—keep in mind that these incarcerations were for “crimes” not associated with an illegal border crossing. * Now, that sounds like bad news because any crime has a victim and many crimes have multiple victims. And, in fact, it is bad news. However, and there’s often a “however” in such matters, the researchers found that “Legal and illegal immigrants were less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans in 2017, just as they were in 2014 and 2016” (5). Imported crime does not surpass home-grown crime.
Where does that leave us? There are those who favor “borderless” countries. I suppose at their core, they believe in some “world unity.” They are, as I have previously called them, the “Imagine Idealists” after John Lennon’s lyrics, people for whom reality is an average and for whom some endpoint unity is possible, maybe inevitable. They are versions themselves of a Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who believe that human evolution works to make humans better, whatever “better” means, physical, intellectual, spiritual. They believe the masses will unconsciously work toward a better world. To hold such an evolution principle, they must ignore the realities, the details, of actual evolution, specifically that its mutations are random. They must also ignore that many such mutations result in “tragedies” for the individuals in the grand experimental scheme of things. Biology, used as a model, has produced far more losers than winners if estimates on the number of species that have gone extinct are reasonable. David M. Raup, a statistical paleontologist, estimates that the planet has housed up to fifty billion species over the last 3.5 billion years. ** And although there are conceivably between 5 and 50 million species alive today (no one knows), those alive are outnumbered by those extinct. Thus, evolutionary experiments don’t always lead to success stories, averages are still just averages with outliers of all kinds, and some of those outliers are victims of crimes committed by border crossers, in fact, by migrants both legal and illegal. Still, there are those who believe the world will work its way toward some Overman as Nietzsche postulated and Bernard Shaw promulgated, or toward some Omega Point imagined by de Chardin, that the trend will be toward “betterment” and “unity.” “Imagine…and the world will live as one” (Lennon).
And it might. Yes, it might. But then, again, there have been in just one year in the United States those incarcerated 756 per 100,000 who have entered the country to do no “good.” And the same applies to other countries. Sure, the average might be toward some neutral or enhanced state of the State, but the individuals who suffer some harm, loss, or even personal extinction at the hands of migrants won’t be around to see the future Fermis, Audubons, and Claudes enhance our knowledge of the world. Does migration offer benefits? Did you use Google to find this author? Thank—or curse, depending on whether or not you like these musings of mine—Sergery Brin, immigrant who with Larry Page founded the search engine. Had Brin not emigrated from the Soviet Union…
That difference between equifinality and multifinality, terms used by psychologists trying to trace the origins of pathological individuals, does seem to apply here. Two people can have very similar experiences but end up different (multifinality); two can have very different experiences but end up the same (equifinality). We’re unpredictable as individuals, however. Do we apply averages when we are not personally affected? Those who favor unlimited border crossings have no objections to them. Many poor immigrants will arrive to become productive individuals. But what if those “Imagine Idealists” were personally victimized by an illegal alien criminal? What, for example, if they were in the baby shoes of the three-year old child of 35-year-old Karen Ruiz of California? Karen was killed by Herbert Nixon Flores, a 46-year-old Salvadoran who had been deported ten times for offenses ranging from burglary to driving under the influence, to resisting arrest, to criminal threats to, well, a bunch of other illegal activities. Average that, I might ask of an “Imagine Idealist,” into your Omega Point, your Imagined World, your Nietzschean Overman. Certainly, Karen won’t be able to see the endpoint because she prematurely reached it thanks to Flores and the sanctuary system that allowed him to stay in the United States on his eleventh illegal entry.
I have no idea what caused the pathology of Flores. Maybe he was reared without love. But, then again, maybe he was reared with love. At 46 and shortly after killing Karen Ruiz, he committed suicide, so we’ll never know. Does it matter whether or not his life path was filled with love or hate, with respect for life or disdain for it, with compunction or indifference?
And so, migrations will continue as they have since humans spread first throughout Africa and then throughout the world. They will be both voluntary and involuntary marches of the innocent and evil, the bright and dull, and the moral and amoral. In every group of every ethnic stripe, there have been the good the inventive. Those unaffected personally by any evil will say that all is well and good. Greater diversity has given USA African-American, Asian, and European inventors and engineers. It has given the United States thinkers and artists, industrialists and technologists, and moral and spiritual leaders. Those negatively affected will say there are prices to pay that no individual should have to pay, prices paid by Karen Ruiz and her daughter. Those who favor open borders will think in terms of averages and of the supposed evolution toward some wonderful finality. They will continue to believe that given the right start in life, all individuals will end in an equifinality of good. In opposition, those who have experienced varying degrees of harm will note that multifinality is more rule than exception.
How do you view yourself? Is it in terms of averages or in terms of specifics? I would guess it’s in terms of the latter rather than the former.
Notes:
*Langrave, Michelangelo and Alex Nowrasteh. 4 Mar 2019. Criminal Immigrants in 2017: Their Numbers, Demographics, and Countries of Origin. CATO Institute, Immigration Research and Policy Brief No. 11. PDF available.
**Raup, David M. Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? New York. W.W. Norton & Company, 1991. I’ve quoted Raup in other blogs. The book is worth the read.
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