Process of Diversity

                            Process of Diversity

Does diversity have value in itself? Or, when we speak of diversity, do we assume a certain level of quality? We usually don't include stone-age cultures or cultures rich in human sacrifice when we consider diversity. What is it about diversity we like?

It certainly isn't difference alone. No one wants to spice the college scene with a few affable Nazis. Nor would we advocate diversity for entertainment value alone; there must be something else, something more.

I think most likely the possibility of "contribution," the bringing of a new, perhaps oblique view to the table where the condition of man is being discussed. It implies quality and interest in human advancement, not simple difference. It is a distinction in perspective. A unique vision of value. Diversity is part of the creative direction, not the outcome; it is the interface, not the result.

Here is Sowell on diversity, assuming some basic agreements:

“If there is any place in the Guinness Book of World Records for words repeated the most often, over the most years, without one speck of evidence, “diversity” should be a prime candidate. Is diversity our strength? Or anybody’s strength, anywhere in the world? Does Japan’s homogeneous population cause the Japanese to suffer? Have the Balkans been blessed by their heterogeneity — or does the very word “Balkanization” remind us of centuries of strife, bloodshed and unspeakable atrocities, extending into our own times? Has Europe become a safer place after importing vast numbers of people from the Middle East, with cultures hostile to the fundamental values of Western civilization?

“When in Rome do as the Romans do” was once a common saying. Today, after generations in the West have been indoctrinated with the rhetoric of multiculturalism, the borders of Western nations on both sides of the Atlantic have been thrown open to people who think it is their prerogative to come as refugees and tell the Romans what to do — and to assault those who don’t knuckle under to foreign religious standards.

It has not been our diversity, but our ability to overcome the problems inherent in diversity, and to act together as Americans, that has been our strength.”

Diversity is a part of a process, not the endpoint.