December 28, 2004

Diversity, good and bad

It is amazing how Leftists have perverted the word "diversity". The people who can call a vicious dictatorship "The People's Democratic Republic of .... " have done a similar hit-job on "diversity". American universities pride themselves on their diversity but are in fact one of the least diverse places on the planet (See here). In American university-speak, "diverse" translates fairly directly as meaning "black" and nothing more. Elsewhere, "diversity" has become an excuse for suppressing all traces of majority culture. Anything not characteristic of majority culture is "diverse" to Leftists and is to be praised no matter what. And any element of majority culture is conversely not "diverse" and must therefore be condemned.

In fact, diversity should be a good conservative value. I myself think that real diversity is strength and so does the Queen of England (See her Christmas message). Fascists, by contrast, think unity is strength. The very word "Fascism" is an allusion to the tied-up bundle of rods (the fasces) that the lictors of ancient Rome bore as a visible symbol of the united strength of the Roman people. And Rome was a Fascist State -- with the godlike leader (at least from Caesar onwards), the socialism ("panem et circenses") and the fiercely nationalist belief in Rome's destiny to rule. So it is no wonder that Mussolini named his Fascist movement after the ancient symbol of all that. And Hitler was the same. The most famous Nazi slogan is "Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Fuehrer" -- which translates as: "ONE State, ONE people, ONE leader". And we all know how much diversity of thought and enterprise there was in the old Soviet Union.

Conservatives, by contrast, don't believe anything is that simple. They see the world as complex and hence diverse. They accept and deal with diversity whereas Leftists, despite their current pretensions, have since the French revolution always tried to suppress it when they have the power to do so. But for Leftists to preach one thing and then do the opposite when they gain power is a very old story. And part of actually accepting and dealing with diversity (instead of just preaching it to others) is to discriminate among types of diversity. Only a Leftist could propose such an absurd rule as saying that all diversity is good. Murderers are pretty diverse from the rest of society, for instance. Is it a good thing to have lots of them? Sane people would say not but Leftists in our society defend criminals. They say criminals are just "misunderstood". Conservatives, by contrast, want to lock the criminals up and thus reduce that element of diversity in their society.

A similar question arises with ethnic diversity. I myself, for instance, think that most forms of ethnic diversity are a good thing. I have a good friend who was born in India, I love Indian food and I am pleased that my country (Australia) now has in its population many of the instinctively civilized people of China. But I don't think that having Muslims in Western populations is a good thing at all. There are of course many decent Muslims (I have one living in my own house) but they are such a troublesome population in general that I would like to see the least assimilated element of them shipped back whence they came.

And let's look at the blogosphere. Two of the bloggers I think most highly of are Razib and "Godless" of Gene Expression. But Razib is a brown-skinned man of Bangladeshi origin and, if my memory serves me rightly, "Godless" is a Jew. Is not that diversity a strength? Are we not benefited by having those two people to exchange ideas with? If Americans had not welcomed the families of both men into their midst, Razib might just be swatting flies in a Bengali village and "Godless" might be marooned in an East-European shtetl. So I am all for real diversity and utterly against the parody of diversity preached by Leftists.




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