Considering that I use at least four languages[1] every day, and am thankful[2] to be living someplace that has not yet been completely overrun by chains and big box stores, I'd argue the assertion of a "heterogenous" US might need defending.
On the original question: I think switzerland is nice for two reasons. (a) we didn't blow ourselves up twice last century, which meant that even with little absolute growth we went from being a relatively poor european country to a relatively rich one, and (b) putting more emphasis on quality of life than on hustle results in, well, more quality of life.
[1] It doesn't work for francophones, who have a general swiss (or at best cantonal) idiom, but in swiss-german there are several isoglosses just within my valley that allow me to place a speaker. Granted, my valley has been historically universally catholic, but these days that just means that our protestants and muslims get lumped together in the "not christian" bucket :-)
[2] a french friend put it this way, earlier this century: "Modern europeans are too busy feeling sorry for those poor benighted savages who had the misfortune to be born a few villages over, to bother travelling halfway around the world to bring their superior way of life to people at gunpoint." À mon avis, c pas faux.
In the city I grew up in, official notices were routinely made in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese, and I regularly encountered people speaking Korean and Chinese as well. Even my grandma's rural town, with a population of under 5,000 and an hour's drive to the closest city, has people and restaurants representing four or five different nationalities. If you're perceiving the US as a country where everyone only speaks English and only eats at McDonalds, that's not accurate.
Aha, things have improved since last century. When in California I did use spanish as well as english, and in Louisiana french as well as english — but back then the concept of "melting pot" was still current, so one of these languages was clearly the prestige dialect.
Looking at the current cabinet, I'm sure if I scrolled enough in @SecElaineChao I could find some chinese. Sorry for my outdated impression.
but we utterly lack any mother-tongue sinophones. And although our current president, @s_sommaruga, has some romanche in her feed, she uses much more english.)
uh yeah you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that a country that is majority white isn't homogeneous because multiple languages are spoken
when I speak of homogeneity I'm talking about race, immigration, etc.
> uh yeah you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that a country that is majority white isn't homogeneous because multiple languages are spoken
Well, he convinced me. (Largely because I have lived in countries with communities like that).
[Out of curiosity, does my testimony change your mind?]
no - because Switzerland's population is 70% Swiss, with the remaining mostly from nearby countries that have similar values and complexions. Just because you grow up learning various languages does not mean your society is heterogeneous.
A society where every learns 4 languages and looks the same is homogenous.
You aren't: you are trying to defend the silly notion that a group of white people are homogenous even if they have different languages.
You state such a thing (diversity) cannot EVER possibly be true. The OP and I testify otherwise. From lived experience - mine with nothing to do with Switerland (or Canada in case you are guessing).
Consider today then whether the Serbo-Croation war could ever be possible under your model of reality (who would fight who?). Except it was.
On the original question: I think switzerland is nice for two reasons. (a) we didn't blow ourselves up twice last century, which meant that even with little absolute growth we went from being a relatively poor european country to a relatively rich one, and (b) putting more emphasis on quality of life than on hustle results in, well, more quality of life.
[1] It doesn't work for francophones, who have a general swiss (or at best cantonal) idiom, but in swiss-german there are several isoglosses just within my valley that allow me to place a speaker. Granted, my valley has been historically universally catholic, but these days that just means that our protestants and muslims get lumped together in the "not christian" bucket :-)
[2] a french friend put it this way, earlier this century: "Modern europeans are too busy feeling sorry for those poor benighted savages who had the misfortune to be born a few villages over, to bother travelling halfway around the world to bring their superior way of life to people at gunpoint." À mon avis, c pas faux.