[Red_Bull]

Moreover, no act can be justified without an appeal to non-material reasons. What is happiness, in a material world?

Now we're getting to the fun part . Most Marxists would probably be existentialists like myself. Once you come to the realization that human history is nothing but an empty struggle between labor and capital it's up to the individual to create their own meaning. Otherwise we degenerate into Nihilism.

[Fasces]

But it is not up to the individual. Meaning is, of course, an abstraction, but it is socially derived. This is why the maintenance of organic social organizations are important, and why they are capable of surpassing material limitations. Are you prepared to claim that every human being without a certain standard of material goods is not "happy"?

When one examines how human beings define happiness, it is largely through traditional institutions. Modernism, or at least the material oriented liberal societies of the West, correlate with high rates of depression and psychological stress. This would indicate, to me, that they cannot fulfill man's desires or needs accurately - and the fault of this is the erroneous claim that man is a mechanical being.

[Figlio di Moros]

Now we're getting to the fun part . Most Marxists would probably be existentialists like myself. Once you come to the realization that human history is nothing but an empty struggle between labor and capital it's up to the individual to create their own meaning. Otherwise we degenerate into Nihilism.

[youtube]_ZN3weW1udE[/youtube]

When you destroy everything that's immaterial, you end up with only base measures of happiness. Spicy McHaggis is your resolution.

[AFAIK]

Nonsense. They refuse to assimilate, and promote their own cultural values despite migration. Their national identity remains sound, even through multiple generations.

I completely disagree but my example may be an exception.

Most migrants to the USA assimilate very well and very fast. 1st generation migrants often cluster together and maintain their cultural identity. Their children often disperse around the country as they pursue economic oppourtunities. Cultural identity is weakened and diluted and the 3rd generation is completely assimilated. The country of origin is far aware making it difficult to maintain ties.

Exceptions;

1- Those who were already there when colonisers arrived (Native Indians)
2- Those who were taken there by force (African Americans)
3- Those who are able to maintain ties to their original cultural identity due to their numbers and proximity to home (Mexicans)

The final chapter of The Next 100 Years by George Friedman provides good analysis.

Perhaps immigrants "refuse to assimilate" into the host nation because the locals are hostile. Japan has failed to reach a self set quota for Burmese refugee intake because those living in refugee camps have been warned about the difficulties of life in Japan by Burmese living there- nobody speaks English for example.

Many long term residents state that they continue to be treated as an "outside person"* by the locals even after living in the country long term and doing everything that they can do to assimilate.

*Gaijin literally translates as outside person and is a contraction of gaikokujin- outside country person. The former is in common usage in Japan and isn't considered to be offensive. If you suggest that it is the equivalent of Jap then most will disagree.

[Deutschmania]

[youtube]_ZN3weW1udE[/youtube]

When you destroy everything that's immaterial, you end up with only base measures of happiness. Spicy McHaggis is your resolution.

Exactly as Figlio di Moros stated. And in addition to the music video he posted, here's this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nijEGo3BB2k Personal happiness is derived from fulfillment of a higher sacred sense of purpose, not simple hedonism. Pleasure is fleeting, and no one lives forever. The only things of lasting significance are such as society, and honour. And though some might describe me as being an autonomous marxist, I'm still not an absolute materialist. Man, in my opinion, is not merely a material being, like some brute beast, driven solely by primal instincts, but also a spiritual being, with a higher cognitive consciousness. So I feel that a person must have his own dreams, in concert with the greater good of the people. Or, as Karl Marx himself put it,

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

- http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm