Posted on 01/11/2004 4:35:40 AM PST by JesseHousman
Affirmative action bake sales, Wellesley College, the Supreme Court, and the increasing failure of America's public schools to effectively teach students: what do they all have in common? Anyone who's read Peter Wood's excellent book Diversity: The Invention of a Concept could easily answer that one -- as could shrewd guessers in today's continuing climate of political correctness.
The common theme is diversity, or, as Wood notated it throughout his book, diversity. At first this italicization might seem like a contrivance aimed at highlighting an artificial distinction, but by the end most readers will recognize and agree with the necessity of distinguishing today's unfortunately commonplace meaning of the term, and its once-useful definition as "the quality, state, or instance of being different".
But wait a minute -- isn't that what diversity is all about? Aren't we celebrating differentness -- being diverse -- in wanting women, Amerinds, Muslims, Asians, and others to be recognized for their contributions to American society and culture? If that's what was truly going on by preaching diversity, that would be the case. However Wood knows better, and he lifts the veil that many social meddlers would rather we not even notice, much less peek behind. What he reveals in twelve engaging chapters is an ideology that is ostensibly about differentness, but that works very hard to put all individuals into cramped little boxes with neat, tidy labels.
Wood, an anthropologist, begins his argument by examining western Europeans' explorations and inevitable interactions with individuals and cultures very different from their own. Wood's extensive quotations from explorers' narratives would surely mortify the PC diversiphile who mistakenly thinks the book only reaches back to the 1960s when the U.S. began in earnest its social experimentation. The richness of these narratives contrasts starkly with today's oft-stereotyped, unidimensional views of Hispanics, Amerinds, and others.
Wood's journey proceeds through the decades and diversity arenas, with intriguing stops along the way. For example, Wood asserts that Darwin is in part responsible for our fascination with diversity, by placing biological diversity at the center of his theorizing. Wood's discussion of diversity in the arts and business is at turns sadly recognizable, penetratingly insightful, and suffused with a dry wit that belies Wood's academic credentials.
So how did we get from Darwin and the importance of diversity in life to affirmative action bake sales? College students participating in bake sales have gotten into hot water for charging different prices according to the buyer's race, sex, and ethnicity (an act of protest and parody of the 2003 Supreme Court case sanctioning admissions practices by the same factors). How can Wellesley College -- an all-female university -- proudly boast of being "one of the most diverse colleges in the nation" when it refuses to even consider any male applicant? Why have educators allowed themselves to get so caught up in the affirmation of diversity that learning is sacrificed for feel-good programs that dumb all students down? Wood answers all these questions and more in his thorough, penetrating, but very clear and readable style.
The greatest value in Diversity: The Invention of a Concept may be Wood's willingness to lift the veil, and show the hypocrisy -- albeit unintentional much of the time -- of those who advance modern-day diversity. Wood shows through examples, and by his deft touch at highlighting diversity's sometimes subtle egregiousness, that while diversity has roots in genuine differences among humans, it ultimately seeks to squash individual differences. The fundamental paradox Wood identifies is this: while diversity is good between groups, it appears to be unthinkable within groups (hence the media's continued "overlooking" of most conservative African Americans). Diversity also elevates feelings over thinking, particularly if those feelings reach back to some previously-slighted group. Most importantly, it is an oppressor of true diversity and the spirit of American individuality; as Wood described it, diversity is "a closed loop of thought and experience .... [that] seeks to explain away rather than to explain inconvenient facts." (p. 307, italics in original).
Peter Wood offers an examination of an increasingly important social construct that is remarkable in both its scope and its depth. Diversity: The Invention of a Concept offers academic coverage in an often amusing style, and is so well presented that diversiphiles who pick it up are unlikely to be able to put it down, even as they fume about the goring of their favorite ox. It's genuinely difficult to imagine a better treatment of such a complex concept.
But,squealing about diversity is number one in the left's ideology scheme. Musn't forget the homosexuals and their agenda, however. It is fitting nicely into the left's program.
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This imagined push for diversity is one of the most destructive forces to our society we have ever seen. It rends the very skin of American society into little shreds for the crows to pick at and devour.
We have become so cowed by the word diversity we are now willing to supplicate ourselves to anyone who is "more diverse" than we are. We no longer stand up for the values and beliefs that made us a single entity as a nation. We now sit on our "diverseness" and watch the nation crumble.
The Japanese tolerate little "diversity." America revels in it and our political class plays games with our numerous minority groups to retain or achieve power.
The Japanese tolerate little "diversity." America revels in it and our political class plays games with our numerous minority groups to retain or achieve power.
spinter=splinter.
Sorry, it's early.
Love and wholeheartedly agree with that tagline!
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