Posted on 08/14/2012 8:04:59 AM PDT by shortstop
Few words have been more popular in recent years than "diversity."
And few concepts have been more destructive.
Destructive of our social fabric, destructive of our moral well-being, destructive of our ability to make judgments.
In schools, non-profits and government programs across the nation, diversity has been held up as a great and noble prize. Some objective to be fought for and given prominence. It has become the top priority in institutions from colleges to corporations.
And it has become a philosphy handed down like the word of god from the pulpits of education, business and government.
And yet it is a bunch of crap.
It is not a panacea, it is a poison.
It is the latest ax wielded to bring down American heritage and values. In the name of brotherhood, justice and tolerance, it fosters enmity, inequity and chauvinism.
And that's not the worst part.
The worst part is the moral relativism which is inherent in it. A moral relativism that poses a great danger to our individual and social health and stability.
The foundation of the diversity movement is an almost shamanistic belief that it is good in and of itself. That diversity must be sought and advanced and that's that. It's like a magical thing. College presidents in their exit interviews with reporters boast of increased diversity while ignoring educational outcome. Businesses brag about having a diverse workforce at the same time they lose money.
Diversity has become an end in itself, instead of a means to another end.
And that's no good.
Because diversity for diversity's sake is a recipe for disaster.
The goal is not to be diverse, the goal is to be one. The goal is not to be rewarded for differences, but to be enabled by commonalities. At church, in school, on the job, people become better and more successful when they identify as a team instead of as individuals.
Particularly individuals who are highlighted by their contrasts.
Our society is drawn together when we see ourselves as Americans, not as various splintered racial, linguistic, religious and lifestyle groups. People work best together -- as employees or neighbors -- when they work toward a common interest, not from a disparate background.
People with a chip on their shoulder cannot shoulder the burden of citizenship.
The diversity movement actively sows the seeds of division and conflict. It will result not in a tolerant society, but in a civil war. People do not grow closer under its tutelage, they grow further apart. People don't become sensitive to one another's interests, they become hypersensitive to one another's offenses, typically seeing them where they do not in fact exist.
Whereas Martin Luther King Jr. hoped his children would be judged by the content of their character, the diversity movement identifies and values them by the color of their skin.
Which is racist and wrong.
The harshest blow dealt by the diversity movement, however, is not to social relations, but to moral fiber. It fosters a life view which tears down values and morality. It attacks the notion of absolute truth and leads to a moral anarchy or chaos, a state where all rules are thrown out.
Diversity teaches that the mores of the majority must not be given ascendancy. That the views of one group must not be given any more respect than the views of any other group.
In fact, diversity actively promotes minority and divergent views and values. It ignores the normal to exalt the aberrant. It purposelly avoids the mainstream.
It insists on a parity that does not in fact exist. And it often achieves that parity by debasing all value systems. In making sure that no morals are treated any better than any other morals, the practical impact of diversity is to abandon morals altogether.
Instead of it being a disagreement about what truth is, it leaves its followers believing that there is no truth. That there isn't right and wrong, just difference. And difference is good.
And there are no answers.
Which is false.
There are answers. There is right and wrong. Truth is absolute.
And absolute truth should be sought. Sadly, the society raised to worship diversity will never know to search for it.
The liberal insistence for the acceptance of ‘diversity’ originated in the same place as ‘white guilt’; the overwhelming need for liberals to be ethnologically schooled and ethnically approved. Accordingly, the pc liberal element unknowingly is used and played like a $.25 harmonica by all groups, and universally hated as is the man who daily insists on giving a handout to a beggar. Tossing a penny to a dancing monkey will produce no element of respect, only hatred of the contributor.
He advocates one type of freedom, and one type only - the freedom to sin.
Everything else is forbidden (it's politically incorrect).
I remembered a study from a few years ago done at Harvard of all places.
The downside of diversity
A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?
(Illustration/ Keith Negley)
By Michael Jonas | August 5, 2007
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.
The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm large-scale immigration causes to the nation’s social fabric. But with demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward greater diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling social changes that Putnam’s research predicts.
“We can’t ignore the findings,” says Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. “The big question we have to ask ourselves is, what do we do about it; what are the next steps?”
The study is part of a fascinating new portrait of diversity emerging from recent scholarship. Diversity, it shows, makes us uncomfortable — but discomfort, it turns out, isn’t always a bad thing. Unease with differences helps explain why teams of engineers from different cultures may be ideally suited to solve a vexing problem. Culture clashes can produce a dynamic give-and-take, generating a solution that may have eluded a group of people with more similar backgrounds and approaches. At the same time, though, Putnam’s work adds to a growing body of research indicating that more diverse populations seem to extend themselves less on behalf of collective needs and goals.
His findings on the downsides of diversity have also posed a challenge for Putnam, a liberal academic whose own values put him squarely in the pro-diversity camp. Suddenly finding himself the bearer of bad news, Putnam has struggled with how to present his work. He gathered the initial raw data in 2000 and issued a press release the following year outlining the results. He then spent several years testing other possible explanations.
When he finally published a detailed scholarly analysis in June in the journal Scandinavian Political Studies, he faced criticism for straying from data into advocacy. His paper argues strongly that the negative effects of diversity can be remedied, and says history suggests that ethnic diversity may eventually fade as a sharp line of social demarcation.
“Having aligned himself with the central planners intent on sustaining such social engineering, Putnam concludes the facts with a stern pep talk,” wrote conservative commentator Ilana Mercer, in a recent Orange County Register op-ed titled “Greater diversity equals more misery.”
Putnam has long staked out ground as both a researcher and a civic player, someone willing to describe social problems and then have a hand in addressing them. He says social science should be “simultaneously rigorous and relevant,” meeting high research standards while also “speaking to concerns of our fellow citizens.” But on a topic as charged as ethnicity and race, Putnam worries that many people hear only what they want to.
“It would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity,” he writes in the new report. “It would be equally unfortunate if an ahistorical and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that addressing that challenge is both feasible and desirable.”
. . .
Putnam is the nation’s premier guru of civic engagement. After studying civic life in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam turned his attention to the US, publishing an influential journal article on civic engagement in 1995 that he expanded five years later into the best-selling “Bowling Alone.” The book sounded a national wake-up call on what Putnam called a sharp drop in civic connections among Americans. It won him audiences with presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and made him one of the country’s best known social scientists.
Putnam claims the US has experienced a pronounced decline in “social capital,” a term he helped popularize. Social capital refers to the social networks — whether friendships or religious congregations or neighborhood associations — that he says are key indicators of civic well-being. When social capital is high, says Putnam, communities are better places to live. Neighborhoods are safer; people are healthier; and more citizens vote.
The results of his new study come from a survey Putnam directed among residents in 41 US communities, including Boston. Residents were sorted into the four principal categories used by the US Census: black, white, Hispanic, and Asian. They were asked how much they trusted their neighbors and those of each racial category, and questioned about a long list of civic attitudes and practices, including their views on local government, their involvement in community projects, and their friendships. What emerged in more diverse communities was a bleak picture of civic desolation, affecting everything from political engagement to the state of social ties.
Putnam knew he had provocative findings on his hands. He worried about coming under some of the same liberal attacks that greeted Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s landmark 1965 report on the social costs associated with the breakdown of the black family. There is always the risk of being pilloried as the bearer of “an inconvenient truth,” says Putnam.
After releasing the initial results in 2001, Putnam says he spent time “kicking the tires really hard” to be sure the study had it right. Putnam realized, for instance, that more diverse communities tended to be larger, have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more mobility among their residents — all factors that could depress social capital independent of any impact ethnic diversity might have.
“People would say, ‘I bet you forgot about X,’” Putnam says of the string of suggestions from colleagues. “There were 20 or 30 X’s.”
But even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend to “distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.”
“People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’ — that is, to pull in like a turtle,” Putnam writes.
In documenting that hunkering down, Putnam challenged the two dominant schools of thought on ethnic and racial diversity, the “contact” theory and the “conflict” theory. Under the contact theory, more time spent with those of other backgrounds leads to greater understanding and harmony between groups. Under the conflict theory, that proximity produces tension and discord.
Putnam’s findings reject both theories. In more diverse communities, he says, there were neither great bonds formed across group lines nor heightened ethnic tensions, but a general civic malaise. And in perhaps the most surprising result of all, levels of trust were not only lower between groups in more diverse settings, but even among members of the same group.
“Diversity, at least in the short run,” he writes, “seems to bring out the turtle in all of us.”
The overall findings may be jarring during a time when it’s become commonplace to sing the praises of diverse communities, but researchers in the field say they shouldn’t be.
“It’s an important addition to a growing body of evidence on the challenges created by diversity,” says Harvard economist Edward Glaeser.
In a recent study, Glaeser and colleague Alberto Alesina demonstrated that roughly half the difference in social welfare spending between the US and Europe — Europe spends far more — can be attributed to the greater ethnic diversity of the US population. Glaeser says lower national social welfare spending in the US is a “macro” version of the decreased civic engagement Putnam found in more diverse communities within the country.
Economists Matthew Kahn of UCLA and Dora Costa of MIT reviewed 15 recent studies in a 2003 paper, all of which linked diversity with lower levels of social capital. Greater ethnic diversity was linked, for example, to lower school funding, census response rates, and trust in others. Kahn and Costa’s own research documented higher desertion rates in the Civil War among Union Army soldiers serving in companies whose soldiers varied more by age, occupation, and birthplace.
Birds of different feathers may sometimes flock together, but they are also less likely to look out for one another. “Everyone is a little self-conscious that this is not politically correct stuff,” says Kahn.
. . .
So how to explain New York, London, Rio de Janiero, Los Angeles — the great melting-pot cities that drive the world’s creative and financial economies?
The image of civic lassitude dragging down more diverse communities is at odds with the vigor often associated with urban centers, where ethnic diversity is greatest. It turns out there is a flip side to the discomfort diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the short run, is a liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of emerging research suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to driving productivity and innovation. In high-skill workplace settings, says Scott Page, the University of Michigan political scientist, the different ways of thinking among people from different cultures can be a boon.
“Because they see the world and think about the world differently than you, that’s challenging,” says Page, author of “The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies.” “But by hanging out with people different than you, you’re likely to get more insights. Diverse teams tend to be more productive.”
In other words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone, but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the workplace may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the economy and of creative culture.
Page calls it the “diversity paradox.” He thinks the contrasting positive and negative effects of diversity can coexist in communities, but “there’s got to be a limit.” If civic engagement falls off too far, he says, it’s easy to imagine the positive effects of diversity beginning to wane as well. “That’s what’s unsettling about his findings,” Page says of Putnam’s new work.
Meanwhile, by drawing a portrait of civic engagement in which more homogeneous communities seem much healthier, some of Putnam’s worst fears about how his results could be used have been realized. A stream of conservative commentary has begun — from places like the Manhattan Institute and “The American Conservative” — highlighting the harm the study suggests will come from large-scale immigration. But Putnam says he’s also received hundreds of complimentary emails laced with bigoted language. “It certainly is not pleasant when David Duke’s website hails me as the guy who found out racism is good,” he says.
In the final quarter of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge in a broader context by describing how social identity can change over time. Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way to “more encompassing identities” that create a “new, more capacious sense of ‘we,’” he writes.
Growing up in the 1950s in a small Midwestern town, Putnam knew the religion of virtually every member of his high school graduating class because, he says, such information was crucial to the question of “who was a possible mate or date.” The importance of marrying within one’s faith, he says, has largely faded since then, at least among many mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.
While acknowledging that racial and ethnic divisions may prove more stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples bode well for the long-term prospects for social capital in a multiethnic America.
In his paper, Putnam cites the work done by Page and others, and uses it to help frame his conclusion that increasing diversity in America is not only inevitable, but ultimately valuable and enriching. As for smoothing over the divisions that hinder civic engagement, Putnam argues that Americans can help that process along through targeted efforts. He suggests expanding support for English-language instruction and investing in community centers and other places that allow for “meaningful interaction across ethnic lines.”
Some critics have found his prescriptions underwhelming. And in offering ideas for mitigating his findings, Putnam has drawn scorn for stepping out of the role of dispassionate researcher. “You’re just supposed to tell your peers what you found,” says John Leo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “I don’t expect academics to fret about these matters.”
But fretting about the state of American civic health is exactly what Putnam has spent more than a decade doing. While continuing to research questions involving social capital, he has directed the Saguaro Seminar, a project he started at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government that promotes efforts throughout the country to increase civic connections in communities.
“Social scientists are both scientists and citizens,” says Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, who sees nothing wrong in Putnam’s efforts to affect some of the phenomena he studies.
Wolfe says what is unusual is that Putnam has published findings as a social scientist that are not the ones he would have wished for as a civic leader. There are plenty of social scientists, says Wolfe, who never produce research results at odds with their own worldview.
“The problem too often,” says Wolfe, “is people are never uncomfortable about their findings.”
Michael Jonas is acting editor of CommonWealth magazine, published by MassINC, a nonpartisan public-policy think tank in Boston.
Orwellian newspeak: “diversity” and “tolerance” are really forced conformity.
If diversity is so wonderful, why do they have to keep nagging us to “celebrate” it? We would voluntarily and automatically celebrate it if it truly was great.
If diversity is so wonderful, how come diverse cities like Los Angeles are such hellholes people can’t wait to get out? Why do people flee diversity as fast as they can? Why do we have to have “sensitivity training,” affirmative action, lawsuits, etc., etc., to force people to get along, if diversity is such a strength and a joy?
The more “diverse” a neighborhood, city, or nation becomes, the less freedom people have, because now you can’t “offend.”
Far from being a positive, diversity has proven to be an incredible evil. But now we are stuck. How can we “un-diversify”? There is no way now. We have destroyed our country and there is no turning back.
I think this article leaves out the biggest part of the lie: “diversity” is most often used as an excuse to discriminate against white people, usually men. Whenever soomeone says “We need more diversity”, they ALWAYS mean “We need less white people and more non-white (and non-Asian) people”. An organization is said to be completely “diverse” when it has no white men or very few white men. Conversely, an organization that has no white people in it is never said to be in need of greater diversity.
That's what "Diversity Programs" were designed to do from the beginning.
Mark
Diversity was a liberal invention to divide us all. Celebrate your diversity but unite as Americans first!
The goal is the complete BALKANIZATION of America, allowing the political rulers to pit groups against one another to their political advantage.
I have this sneaking suspicion that this is PRECISELY what these New World Order cretins in Washington want. The ensuing civil unrest and turmoil would most likely lead to closing the net around the rest of us, declaring a “National Emergency,” suspending posse comitatus, collecting the firearms and...
If you’re having trouble filling in the rest, study the course of virtually EVERY tyranny throughout history. Also look up “Hegelian Dialectic.”
And if some of you folks are not big readers, perhaps these short videos will help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CyxOlL9zKg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73SsNFgBO4
Diversity is a insidious form of divide and conquer strategy. When your break up a homogeneous society into identity groups, and pit them against on another, through various social engineering projects, the resulting chaos becomes a useful tool to exert your authority over those fractioned and disorganized groups. The smaller and more numerous the groups, the easier it is to control them. The socialist-marxist-dictator types learned this concept long ago, and have made the fullest use of this strategy. The tactics are so pervasive that I even see it here on FR, and people seem to fall for it everytime.
On the contrary. Diversity to the Left is very definitely a means to another end.
The Left has long been at war with traditional values, traditional perceptions, traditional societies. The cult like pursuit of "diversity," is a studied effort to undermine traditional societies, communities, etc.. It is a deliberate attempt to undermine the social cohesion of established societies, ethnicities, etc.
To understand the attack on all established societies, see "Diversity" In Context--Reality vs. Leftwing Fantasy.
To understand the phony academics behind the rationalizations for promoting "diversity," see Myths & Myth Makers In American "Higher" Education.
The reality is that people of good will are being deliberately gamed by fanatics, quacks & charlatans, who do not want to see America--or any other Western Nation--survive in a recognizable form.
William Flax
Yes. In practice the indoctrination begins within public schools administrated largely by leftists.
And later those not conforming to "diversity" ethos or having the proper skin color are screened out-- to the fullest extent possible without kindling all out revolt by the newly fashionable oppressed-- of higher education by admissions depts commanded by leftists.
This substantially increases the likelihood those who harmonize to this precept will then advance into successful positions throughout pvt and public sectors, who are, once again, favored over those within industry in competition for vital and influential roles...and so it goes. And so do we.
After me now, "let us all celebrate diversity!" Feel that tingly feeling? That means it's working.
You are certainly on the right track; but the situation is even more insidious than you indicate.
The "diversity" cult has otherwise conservative people, who were once proud of their heritage--once deeply involved in a multi-generational pursuit--walking on eggs as it were, rather than risk giving offense. All forms of the "Politically Correct" are among the many effects of the "diversity" cult, for an obvious example.
An insane immigration policy, which since 1965 has actually subsidized the immigration, hither, of those with the least ties to the American origins; while the same cultish absurdity interferes with our border security, at the same time as "security" has become an excuse to harass the rooted citizenry; are all further effects of the cultish pursuit.
It is, of course, also behind the frenzied refusal to "profile" at airports, etc..
William Flax
Great post, shortstop. Diversity of thought is interesting. Diversity of skin pigmentation and/or sexual 'orifices of choice' is stupid.
As with all things liberal, he who controls the meaning of words, controls the outcome of the debate. The trick is to change the meaning of the word to your advantage, and then do anything to get others to speak in terms of your meaning without understanding what they have just agreed to.
“Diversity” is one such word that does not, in liberal-speak, mean what most people think it does. It does not mean: to see many valid alternate views on a topic. It means: to accept any view, no matter how outrageous it may be as long as it is not in any way connected with conservative thinking or people like Caucasian males who are likely to be conservative.
It also means- to assume that people who are not Caucasian males will far more likely agree with rejecting the views of Caucasian conservative males. Thus, the presumption that people who are no Caucasian are liberal. In the case of blacks, this appears to be over 80% correct, based on how blacks vote. But this leads to the thinking that when a black person proposes something that a Caucasian male rejects, that rejection is somehow based on race. Thus liberalism wraps itself up in knots that inhibit its ability to accept true diversity of opinion.
South Africa is the weathervane for exactly what you’re describing. It never seems to occur to people that Africa is Africa because it contains Africans. Liberals could not possibly want to live in Africa unless they expect to be the elite rulers of such a place. I wonder what their plan is to avoid the problem of being outnumbered, as happened in SA. Of course, someone with supernatural powers wouldn’t be concened with that. All humanity on earth would be in their power.
As good a “D”-construction of the “D-word” as I’ve seen in print.
Kudos to Mr. Lonsberry for being bold enough to say as much.
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