| I detect a bit of defensiveness in the comments. I also detect a certain egalitarian undertow almost tending toward "everyone should move around" or "no one should move around". There is a third option: some people benefit from moving around. And we may also speak of the social consequences of migration, both for the origin and target societies. I would say this: - Moving around isn't for everyone. - There is a tinge of oikophobia that's common in much of the West today that makes the thought of caring for and willing the genuine good of your own people frightening to many, inconvenient, and for some reason synonymous with chauvinism or some weird exclusivity that construes benevolence as "either/or" instead of in subsidiarian terms. Soon, the mere general prioritization of the good of one's own family members (a duty) will come off as "not inclusive" and "inequitable". - Statistically, there is a certain healthy amount of average migration of certain kinds (the specifics will vary). Some spice enhances the flavor of a soup, but too little leaves it bland, and too much overpowers it. - Travel and living elsewhere can help deprovincialize the mind, but do not guarantee it. - Social networks and social order are important. Note the principle of subsidiary. A human being typically grows up in a family that is itself nwsted within an extended family and a community and so on, like layers of an onion. People typically become alienated when removed from them. - As people get older, it becomes more common to settle down and commit oneself to the good of some particular community (original or adopted) instead of spending one's life drifting anonymously. - One of the big incentives behind traveling or living in different places is to learn about other cultures. But if everyone were moving around, no local culture would ever have the chance to develop because locality requires continuity and a stable, sustaining local population, i.e., a true society. Places with very high rates of inward and outward migration tend to be less distinctive and tend to resemble other hubs of the same kind with which they likely swap inhabitants. If that's what attracts you, then your travelling or moving around isn't motived by a desire to learn about other cultures so much as a desire for a change of scenery while maintaining a more or less consistent, homogenous cultural "experience" globally. It's like being an American who goes on vacation and never talks to the locals, only other Americans in the hotel, or one who wants the "locals" to be like Americans. - There is, of course, a difference between frequent moving and living more than 10 miles away from where you grew up. I attach moral judgement to neither "remaining in the area" nor "living far away" nor even "moving frequently". These are quite personal matters per se. |