Granted, if you’re talking
about a DIVERSITY OF IDEAS, you can certainly come up with some
situations where it’s a strength. For example, in the movie World War Z, Israel is saved (at least temporarily) by having a “tenth man”
whose job is to forcefully argue for the alternative viewpoint to a
situation where everyone agrees. So instead of laughing off the idea
that Israel might face a zombie invasion, Israelis realized there was
merit to it and was prepared in time to protect the country. Back in the
real world, the NFL certainly could have used someone pointing out the
potential long-term downsides of allowing players disrespect the flag
when just Colin Kaepernick was doing it. Donald Trump might benefit from
a diversity of opinions when he’s about to tweet about Rosie O’Donnell
or Mark Cuban at 4 AM. The Democrat Party could certainly use the input
of a few random white factory workers from flyover country about the
latest rhetoric and proposals they’re about to pitch.
On the other
hand, even when diversity of thought is useful, it’s only in limited
doses. The New York Yankees don’t want players who think the Boston Red
Sox should win the pennant. A Republican President doesn’t want a
Democrat in his Cabinet who will undermine him at every opportunity. Our
military doesn’t want soldiers hoping the other side will defeat us in a
war.
All that being said, when most people talk about “diversity,”
they don’t mean a diversity of ideas. They believe a Hispanic guy, a
black guy, a transsexual and a woman bring something to the table just
by virtue of their race or gender.
This is seldom true.
For
example, it is true that a group of white economists working on tax
policy could benefit from having Thomas Sowell come out of retirement to
join their ranks, but that’s because he’s Thomas freakin’ Sowell, not
because he’s black. An all-Hispanic baseball team would benefit from
adding Mike Trout to its roster, but it’s because he can play, not
because of his white perspective. An all-female start-up would be lucky
to get Bill Gates on board, not because he can mansplain things to them,
but because he has lots of friends with infinite amounts of money who
might invest if he’s on board.
In fact, diversity is often a huge
minus. The new black employee may claim you discriminated against him,
even if he’s fired for legitimate reasons. The woman may sue for sexual
harassment after seeing a swimsuit calendar on some random guy’s wall.
The Satanist you hire may call it religious discrimination if you don’t
offer him a goat to sacrifice to Lucifer on Halloween.
Diversity can work just fine, but only if there’s strong
pressure on people to assimilate to the existing culture. That’s why our
very diverse military functions so well. However, we don’t have those
conditions in America as a whole. Instead, we have liberals promoting
tribalism and grievance mongering non-stop. In other words, every
racial, sexual and religious difference is used as a way to split people
further apart. Many of the same people who claim diversity is a
strength will also tell you white people can’t understand the concerns
of black Americans, men are oppressing women and women who don’t want to
share a bathroom with a transsexual man are bigots.
It’s worth
noting that America’s increasing diversity is largely a product of a
change to our immigration system implemented in the sixties.
European-born immigrants made up 75% of American immigrants in 1960, but
that percentage dropped to only 11 percent in 2014. Combine that with
the cultural degradation and rise of tribalism that has occurred during
the last couple of decades and we have seen a much more radical change
in this country than most people realize. Furthermore, as Robert Putnam
noted, all of this diversity in America has a lot of negative consequences,
IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and
ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to
pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our
differences make us stronger. But a massive new study, based on detailed
interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just
the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for
"Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has
found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people
vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work
on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust
one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous
settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America,
found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more
diverse settings. "The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott
Page, a University of Michigan political scientist.
Actually, it’s not all that shocking. We make this assumption
that as people from different groups get to know each other, they’ll
grow to like each other. Unfortunately, this can only occur where people
have shared values and goals. For many Americans, if your neighbors are
waving a Mexican flag and saying America sucks, say you’re part of rape
culture, want America to live under Sharia law or accuse you of having
privilege because you’re white, the more you get to know them, the LESS
you are going to like them. Additionally, if they believe those things,
chances are they don’t like you either.
We see this same pattern
all over the planet. Look at the conflicts going on in Afghanistan,
Libya, Israel and Iraq. How’s that diversity working out for them? How
is diversity playing out for Russia and Chechnya? What about the Hutu
and Tutsi in Rwanda? How about Bosnia and Herzegovina? Even the Western
part of the Roman Empire eventually fell because it became too corrupt
and weak to assimilate the tribes it allowed inside its border. In the
end, diversity cost the Romans their empire.
The only thing that
ever allowed Americans to believe that diversity is a strength was our
uniting culture. Without the now-destroyed Melting Pot to keep us
together, diversity is one of our nation’s great weaknesses.
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